Well said
written by Daniel.Waweru , February 14, 2008

Not only do we condone it, leading members of civil society (Maina Kiai, I'm looking at you) have denied that there is any ethnic cleansing in progress.

even in nairobi
written by mkosakabila , February 14, 2008

Waweru, Gathara. I share your frustration. Am trying, very hard, to figure out why Kiai and his wontons in the HR fraternity would choose to characterize ethnic cleansing differently. Loyalty to foreign masters, perhaps? Or maybe things legal? They are lawyers, you know.
I understand that Nairobi is undergoing a similar change process. People, including the middle class types, are moving to areas (not necessarily the camps) where they feel safer amongst their own. Not good at all.


ps. the cartoon evokes very mixed feelings.

mwenye wembe
written by Stephen Wanyama , February 14, 2008

The chap carrying the wembe is a caricature of who exactly? Maina Kiai? Civil society?

I also find the ardent desire in IDPs to move to their homes very odd, but is this not what has been happening since 1992? You see it is not just Kikuyus who get kicked out of these places by the Kalenjin, Luhya folk, Bukusus and Kisii people have also suffered a lot for it. That is why many of us are passionately opposed to Majimbo, whenever we have heard that word it has led to massive losses on our part.

Now the 1990s were filled with stories of people going with their title deeds to the Land Registry and getting told that ownership had been transferred to a native, whatever that means!! Is Ruto a native of Eldoret?

the great aha!
written by mkosakabila , February 14, 2008

..people going with their title deeds to the Land Registry and getting told that ownership had been transferred to a native, whatever that means!!

So now we start to get a sense of who gets the land left behind by those that have been ethnically cleansed out of RV. The Ruto types.

ethnic interests ?
written by observer , February 15, 2008

I think our ethnic interests trump any moral interests we have.

I was shocked to listen to guy in a church claming to be Christians in one breath and condoning the massacre of their fellow parishioners in the next.

...
written by Gichangi , February 15, 2008

Even worse now, businesses are starting to hire staff along ethnic lines.

“That the process of recruitment will now have an element of ethnic consideration is not in doubt,” said a senior official at PricewaterhouseCoopers who requested not to be named because of the company’s involvement in recruitment consultancy.
He said most firms were likely to be choosy to safeguard their employees’ safety and cushion themselves against risks associated with the physical displacement of staff such as disruption of normal operations.
Similar sentiments were expressed last week by the Central Bank governor, Prof Njuguna Ndungu, on his latest update on the economy following the political turmoil.
“If a policy intervention is not sought, hiring of personnel will be based on preference of location and ethnic group rather than meritocracy,” he said. This would reverse the gains the country had made over the past five years in slowing down the dishing of jobs based on ethnicity, patronage and through corrupt dealings rampant in the two decades to 2002.

Link here

Wakili
written by Kobangoshe , February 15, 2008

See this story:
Negative Ethnicity: From Bias to Genocide

Kobangoshe, kindly repost your comment making sure not to use dashes, apostrophes and quotation marks. A most embarrassing glitch we suffer on occasion truncates posts at the point where these are used. Bear with us a while. Eds.

Additional editorial remark: the software bug only reacts to certain ASCII characters for apostrophes, quotation marks and dashes, characters that usually are generated e.g. when you cut and past from a web source or from a Word doc. When writing a text all of your own, the problem does not necessarily occur, see here:
' ' ' ' - - - """ --- Ed.

Perception of tibalism
written by M. Kahindo , February 15, 2008

The problem we have in Kenya is that different ethnic groups have very varied value systems. When some can go to any lengths to give their children education, others consider investment in education as low priority and only done when there there is an over-supply of investable resources. The same is true about land - some ethnic groups will sell land at low prices and others will buy land at quite high prices. The differential value systems when applied to modern growth and development systems eventually manifest as 'differentials in competitiveness' for resources like land, jobs, business opportunities, school places etc eventually translating to 'economic gaps' between the ethnic groups. When one group is unable to compete and therefore economically poorer, its leaders find excuses as 'discrimination by the govt' and the leaders are able to convince a non-inquisitive audience that its true. For example, if people are recruited for jobs through a fair and transparent process, the number of recruits from the competitive ethnic group will obviously be higher. Part of the solution to the economic gaps must come from the disadvantaged groups through adoption of positive value systems. Creating ethnic blocs will only widen the disparities

...
written by Nyabs , February 15, 2008

@Yero,
That such a petition was written and presented by right thinking people is itself very sad. That you should decide to sink to their level with this statement - is even sadder.
An article posted by Armani on KI on one slave owner known as Lynch on creating hate and distrust, may just help you to appreciate how slippery the path you may have embarked on is. Do find the link here.
Nyabs, kindly do not tolerate hatemongers here. That is what sets us apart from other Kenyan organisations, and it is something we must guard jealously. Eds.

...
written by Misterseed , February 15, 2008

@ Yero,

I did go to the website but did not find the petition you had reffered to. Would be more than happy to look it up if you pointed it out to me more clearly.

The website does certainly have wenyewe, just like others like jaluo.com. Since some people prefer to be defined by their ethnicity, we should let them be, si ndiyo?

Let us go back to more serious matters. Joining them in the puddle may be a very human reaction, but at the end of it we shall all be muddy, or to put in graphically, if for every one of ours killed, we will kill one of their own, then there will be no one to call a Kenyan at the end of the day.

Tribal wars have no winner. We are all losers. If the events of the last one month have not taught us anything, then we will never learn.

And it all starts when we consider them " the enemy", who are the reason as to why we are poor. We then dehumanize them, which makes it easier to kill them because, after all, they even lower than animals.

Yero, we can decide to hold the higher moral ground and refuse to be dragged to that level, or we can, as you have so figuratively put it, " come down into the mud and puddle with them"

Your choice. But unless you were not brought up in Kenya, you will find it very difficult to all of a sudden cut of relations and consider those from the other "group" who are married into your family as "enemies".

We are interwoven as a people. We are economically interdependent. We cannot allow this madness to continue any longer. And I do hope those that we call our leaders, including Raila and Kibaki realize this and work extremly hard to give us back the Kenya we knew before 27th of December, 2007.

...
written by 7master , February 16, 2008

what amaze me about so called misterseed website is not it being a Kikuyu website that is their choice ndiyo but using religion to cover their tribal bigotry he claim to be a pastor.god knows what he preach from pulpit.At lease others are more direct.

re:
written by a guest , February 16, 2008

@Yero,
That such a petition was written and presented by right thinking people is itself very sad. That you should decide to sink to their level with this statement - is even sadder.
An article posted by Armani on KI on one slave owner known as Lynch on creating hate and distrust, may just help you to appreciate how slippery the path you may have embarked on is. Do find the link here.
Nyabs, kindly do not tolerate hatemongers here. That is what sets us apart from other Kenyan organisations, and it is something we must guard jealously. Eds.

Editors, rest assured that my tolerance to tribalists and hatemongers is zero. I was just trying to point to the lady or gentleman the errors of of his or her ways. And thanks, you have been very brutal with the hatemongers who have attempted to muscle their way into KI, part of the reasons it remains my blogsite of choice.

Keep up the great work!

Homes
written by Andrew , February 17, 2008

Specific parts of Kenya belong to specific tribes. That is a fact that cannot be disputed, and that is why we even have local land control boards. That is why you have Kikuyus in Central, Kaleos in Northern Rift, Turkanas in Turkana, Luos around the lake etc. Nodoby can deny that. We have to be honest.

The question to be answered is if different Kenyans can settle in those different parts. The law guarantees that . I would imagine this would mean there is no need for any further debate.

Watch the land being vacated by the IDPs in the rift valley. I will not be surprised if it gets sold to a 'group'/clique hell bent on making hay while the sun shines. Flower farms and big horticultural units currently planned will be put up. The IDPs? They sold their land on willing buyer, willing seller basis, protected in law. Clean deal, open and shut case.

Same old story, classical Kenyan solution to a Kenyan problem...and life just goes on...waiting for the next spark.

not condoning
written by Timothy Wainaina , February 18, 2008

Actually, Central Kenyan MPs have been very loud in their calls for all those who moved away to return to Central Kenya, promising them that they will not be harmed.

An example for the rest to follow. Seriously, the violence is with the ODM.

re: Ethnic Cleansing
written by Daniel.Waweru , February 18, 2008

There is no ethnic cleaning in Kenya. What happened was a spontaneous violent protest to the stolen election, which took ethnic over-tones. Go to Rwanda if you wanna know what ethnic cleansing is.

Kibaki should have seen this coming. Now he should stop the foolishness and negotiate for peace. He can be president since he wants it so bad, but we need a the government of Raila to run things. So Kibaki ceremonial President. Raila PM with executive powers. Kibaki can appoint half the cabinet and Raila the other half. The cabinet positions should be tenured with two-year renewable contracts. After two years, they can get another two or be replaced. Raila can fire his bunch and Kibaki likewise.

Also parliament should be empowered and it's calendar removed from the executive manipulation. The Speaker should head the parliament in all aspects including calling for recess etc.

Murage, welcome back. Quite clever of you not to specify the location of violence you're talking about. In the RVP, everybody has given up pretending that (i) the violence was not planned in advance (see for example Chris Albin-Lackey's testimony to the Senate foreign affairs committee), and (ii) that persons are not being targeted on ethnic grounds. So. it's rather boring and silly of you to come here and make the claims you just have with absolutely no supporting evidence whatsoever.

Ethnic Cleansing
written by Murage , February 18, 2008

There is no ethnic cleansing in Kenya. What happened was a spontaneous violent protest to the stolen election, which took ethnic over-tones. Go to Rwanda if you want to know what ethnic cleansing is.

Kibaki should have seen this coming. Now he should stop the foolishness and negotiate for peace. He can be president since he wants it so bad, but we need a the government of Raila to run things. So Kibaki ceremonial President. Raila PM with executive powers. Kibaki can appoint half the cabinet and Raila the other half. The cabinet positions should be tenured with two-year renewable contracts. After two years, they can get another two or be replaced. Raila can fire his bunch and Kibaki likewise.

Also parliament should be empowered and it's calendar removed from the executive manipulation. The Speaker should head the parliament in all aspects including calling for recess etc.

very depressing
written by girlinthemeadow , February 21, 2008

Very sad indeed. Maina Kiai is either deaf, blind or deaf & blind

Tribesmen or Men\'s tribes?
written by Advocatus Diaboli , February 21, 2008

Sometimes the disingenuousness on display here is downright laugh out loud hilarious.

I especially enjoy when the soot calls both the kettle and pot black, explaining therefore this colour has nothing to do with fire but only with the nature of things in themselves.

Amazing how much fun some people are having. You are so changed from what you once were, Ed.